"Someday, Sam, you will be famous and people will adore you." This is what Sampaguita tells herself when she looks in the mirror and sees herself. She isn't ugly, the world is just hard on some people. It's too bad she can't quite believe it.

Sampaguita Fernandez stared at herself in the mirror. People had often called her ugly, but she'd always tried to take their words with a certain detachment. The whole idea of what was beautiful and what was ugly was nothing more than a childish power play that some people held over others, she sometimes told herself. Just because someone wasn't flawless didn't mean they weren't a good person inside, and it was inner beauty that counted, anyway.

Still, people's jibes hurt, even when Sam pretended that they didn't. They were like nasty, little barbs. They would bury themselves out of sight and out of mind, for a later date, when they would spring up and completely ruin her self-confidence and esteem. She didn't know why she could let the things people said get to her, except that she supposed that people had grown up believing that when someone else stomped on your self-esteem you just took it or you didn't, or you threw something back at them that would be much, much worse and crush them down so that they'd never think of saying anything to you again. It was a horrible world out there, but that was the way of the world, wasn't it?

Except, she didn't know if she could be that person.

She supposed, one day, she would just have to get tough. All of the successful people were, weren't they? They wouldn't stand for someone else's ugly comments; they'd tell them what they could do with their nasty attitude, for sure. And, one day, she would be famous.

In fact, one day, she was going to be a very famous singer. And then people would like her, wouldn't they? She would charm them all with her beautiful, sweet voice. She would be a success story and people would come to like her, even to look up to her and take her into their hearts, even though they didn't know her or had never met her personally.

One day, people would know her and care for her.

She sighed. You are not ugly. You are not ugly. You are not ugly, Sam Fernandez, she repeated to herself in her mind.

If she kept up the mantra, maybe one day she would truly believe it, maybe she would be able to fool herself into thinking that it was true, just like the world had fooled her into thinking it was true when they'd called her less than beautiful her whole life.

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